Nightingale
by Suggestive Wiggling
Summary: "I know she's cocky and hot-headed; it annoys the crap out of us on a regular basis. She's young and inexperienced, and has an unspeakable amount of power she can't dream of controlling. But even so, she's an Avenger. She's one of us. And we're going to do whatever it takes to get our Nightingale back."
1. Prologue

**Nightingale**  
_Prologue_

* * *

"Dark will forever rival light. The challenge is determining one from the other."  
-A.H.B.

* * *

"But what I don't understand is why we have to wear these stupid hockey masks. Everyone already knows what we look like, so what's the point?"

"The point is that Fury told you to wear the mask. Therefore, put the damn thing on and stop complaining."

Tony crossed his arms in defiance, staring daringly at his frustrated companion. "No."

"Stark, you're being childish."

"I'm aware of this fact, as you tell me on a regular basis. Still not wearing the mask."

Steve sighed at his friend's impudence, but chose not to fight back. Let Tony do what he wanted- their boss would get him for it later. He always did. Besides, mothering Tony Stark wasn't really his top priority at the moment.

For the thirtieth time that night, Steve pressed his left eye against the lens of a massive telescope. Assembled, it was close to the size of a small Doberman. Compacted, the monster could fit easily into the soldier's work-roughened left hand. He'd never let on about it, but S.H.I.E.L.D.'s advanced technology was actually quite impressive. In a few years, they'd probably have a fully-functional flying car available for public transport.

"Any movement?"

"Absolutely none." He leaned away from the monsterscope with a face of ice. At least that's what anyone else would see it as; Tony instantly recognized it as a mask covering up his real emotions.

Tony missed her. He wasn't ashamed to admit that even when she was being painfully annoying, she'd been a real friend to him. The others had felt the same way; she'd been like a little sister to most of them. But none of their combined emotions would have been able to compound into the magnitude of guilt Steve was dealing with right now.

"Hey," The soldier felt warm, rough hands of Tony Stark on his shoulders. If he'd had the energy he would have pushed them off; but after going for three days with limited sleep and a handful of granola bars, there was no fight left in him. "We're going to find her. You know we're going to find her, right?"

"But what if we don't," It was more of a statement than a question. "What if we can't find her in time? What if we find her but she's-" He wasn't able to continue, feeling tears prick at his eyes. Not feeling anything, he rubbed them ferociously; he would not cry, he would _not _cry.

"Woah, woah," Steve's wrists were grabbed and secured at his sides. Suddenly Tony's face was inches away from his, eyes wide, voice earnest.

"_We're going to find her_. _You're going to calm the fuck down and think rationally about this and we're going to fucking find her. Because if we don't," _Steve felt his arms released and didn't mind the tingly sensation of regaining feeling in his fingers. "_Hawkeye will kill us._"

This brought a miniscule smile to the roughened soldier's face. Tony returned it with a tight-lipped smile of his own- it held so little recognition of the billionaire/playboy/philanthropist Tony Stark Steve was so accustomed to that he nearly blanched. He watched his friend carefully as he turned back to the monsterscope- brown, empty eyes, shoulders hunched with burden, two days worth of stubble. Though he refused to let on about it, Tony Stark was falling apart just as much as the rest of them. It wasn't a comforting thought.

Because once Tony fell apart, you knew things really weren't going to get better.


	2. Chapter 1

**Nightingale**

_Chapter One_

* * *

_Several months prior._

* * *

Doctor Mortimer Edmund Houston was a tall, bony man with a deceivingly soft, gritty voice. He was a longtime smoker- something the Institution apparently allowed- and it showed in his discolored, gnarled fingertips and the reek of nicotine that clung to his endless supply of tweed overcoats and white button-down shirts like a desperate leech. Doctor Houston was notorious for appearing incredibly frail and elderly- but his flat, colorless eyes still made all those that met them shiver.

The crippled old man leaned casually back in his worn leather recliner, readjusted his glassed so they perched on the very end of his beaky nose, and gazed quizzically at his patient.

"And how are you feeling today, Miss O'Keefe?"

It rang through the chilly cell with a rehearsed score. These words had been uttered many a time and greeted by the same familiar silence. His ward said not a word in reply. The small girl stayed locked in her ball, knees drawn tightly to her chest; as though cold, but she did not make a move to warm herself. In fact, she didn't move at all. The girl refused to even move her glassy eyes from the stark view outside her windowpane.

Doctor Houston didn't seem fazed by her disconnection to the world in the least. He scrawled something in his book and moved on to the next of his questions.

"Is there anything you need to get off your chest? Anything bothering you? Have you made friends? Is your medication helping? Do you have any more bad dreams?" And so on and so forth.

Not in the entire span of being quizzed did the girl move to respond to a single question hurled at her. She knew the drill: throw the bait, wait a time, shrug when the hook is pulled back empty and move on. Over and over again the bait was tossed; another question, another question, another, another, _and how are you feeling today Miss O'Keefe_? _And how are you feeling today?_

Her face did not waver. Oh yes, she knew these games. She'd _made _these games. Not a soul alive had beaten her at it yet. Doctor Houston was her third doc in three months and so far had not made her unbreakable mask slip even a centimeter out of place. But he was persistent. She'd give him that much.

The other two had been simple; try once, then wash, rinse, repeat. They had no interest in curing her. She was merely another poor girl gone unfortunately mad to them. But Doctor Houston was hungry, calculating. He had no interest in curing her either- instead, he wanted to undo her, find out what made her tick, and put her back together like clockwork.

Well no such luck for the poor old man yet.

The Doctor had finished with his scripted questions given to him by the Institution and was now making up his own. This was also according to their typical turn of events. Nothing to worry about.

"What is your favorite food? Do you like chocolate? I like chocolate. Do you like the beach or the park? Before coming to the Institution, did you need to visit any other asylums? Do you have any loved ones?"

And then; "How is your mother, Monica?"

"My mother has been dead fourteen years, three months, and twenty nine days." Monica replied flatly. It was a mechanic answer; one rehearsed and repeated every day at six thirty on the dot in the same voice at the same tempo.

It was the only thing she ever said since arriving at the Institution. To the other doctors, it was seen as improvement; to Doctor Houston, it was merely a recorded message that could be discarded as easily as the unbroken periods of silence to which she answered his other questions.

"Very good, Miss O'Keefe." The Doctor rose, slipping his papers into her incredibly thin file. "I'll be seeing you tomorrow at six o'clock then." When she didn't budge, the wiry doctor had nothing left to do but turn and exit the white cell in silence.

The moment his footsteps faded into the distance, the girl's mask slid from her face, exposing a disgustedly curled upper lip and a pair of flaming dark eyes.

"_Stupid old fucker_." She hissed violently, curling and uncurling her numb fingers. _"You won't break me for the world."_

In a sudden burst of fury, she catapulted off the bed. Her bare feet hit the cold tile floor- also white- with a gentle _pat_, startlingly graceful in her anger. Now antsy with fervor, she paced from one end of the bed to the other. Admittedly, this was all the cramped room would allow.

To the foot end of the bed, to where her head usually lay, albeit sleepless, she paced. Her mutterings were of a madwoman, indecipherable and atrocious. Now and again she'd pause, as though suddenly made of stone, and listen. A pair of footsteps would clomp down the hallway, pass her door, and be gone. The cool of silence returned, and she would continue her furious rampage.

How dare he! How dare he sit there, pompous and well fed, and quiz her (_"Me!) _on the stupidest of subjects. Monica was a learned woman; a smart, respectable individual with a Major in Political Sciences. She could have gone to college at Harvard fucking University if she'd had the money, for God's sake! But _no. _Because of one mishap ("_One!") _with her self control, a crummy, state-provided lawyer, and no living family, she was stuck in this small, white cage, playing house with a nut-job psychologist that wanted to make her cry.

"_Bullshit_!"

She raved like a heated animal, bare feet slapping the floor with fervor. Pace pace pace pace, back and forth, forth and back, whirling in circles until she was sick with dizziness.

At last, she fell upon the bed in exhaustion, worn out from the taxation of her anger. With her eyes shut she could imagine the world around her before all the craziness; before the endless months of mental counseling, of working herself into a frenzy to fall down dead tired just so she could control herself. Because what happened before… had nearly killed her. It _had _killed other people. People with lives and families… She couldn't risk having it happen again. She had to keep herself sane if she ever wanted to get out of here.

Monica _had _to be in control.

A gentle tapping at her door (if you could even call the massive slab of metal barring her from escaping captivity a door) roused her from her exhaustion-induced power-nap. Only one person she knew actually knocked before entering her room…

"Good afternoon, Lillian."

The willowy blonde wearing a pristine white lab coat grinned around the door. "Hey!" As delicately as her name suggested she was, Lillian swept into the room in a shower of flowery-scented perfume. "What's up, Nightingale?"

Monica cracked a rare smile. Lillian had been the first person she'd met at the Institution who had viewed her as a person, not some wild animal that needed to be barred from the rest of society. The first few weeks of the asylum had been rough on her; the first time Lil had tried to give Monica her meds, she'd given her a black eye. But somehow, the gentle hand of Lillian had coaxed Monica from her shell and even scored a few small smiles from her during those dark days. Eventually they began to share stories, Monica allowed Lil to give her the medicinal injections, and she'd been given her trademark nickname; Nightingale. It was as close to friendship that Monica dared to get.

"Woah," Lil paused by her bedside, staring at something behind her. "What the hell happened to your window?"

Monica shifted on the bed to get a better look- and sure enough, there it was. About four inches long, spreading like a cobweb across the very center of the window, was the crack. It must have happened when she punched the wall earlier, in her fervor, if she recalled correctly.

But it was that crack that little shred of shattered glass that sent the cogs of Monica's mind reeling. Those windows were bulletproof. They were supposed to be unbreakable, just in case one of the less-than-sane members of the mentally unstable community tried to make a break for freedom. All these months she'd sat here, too scared by past horrors to use her gifts when all along she could have escaped!

Maybe she could control her powers. Maybe she could finally be free.

"Lillian," Monica cut off whatever her friend had been saying with a single word. "Go home."

Lil looked bewildered, but when she tried to say something, Monica silenced her with a single look. "_Go. Home._"

Her friend shied away instantly from those foreboding dark eyes, scooped up the unused injection tab and scurried from the room. With a puff of violet and vanilla scented perfume, she was gone.

It was the last time Monica saw her friend alive.


End file.
